I've asked. I've seeked. I've knocked. Why have I still not recieved the open door I've been seeking for?- Matthew 7:7-8

For everyone who asks, receives; the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.  - Mt. 7:8

One quick question...

If all I have to do is ask then how come I haven't gotten everything I've ever asked for?

Do you struggle with that as much as I do? I have often come to the "prayer promises" passages in the Bible and either rushed through them so I didn't have to deal with them, or else I've just settled to not fully understand them.

I remember very plainly standing in a hospital room of a young man who had either just died or was dying. I am actually fairly confident that he was already dead, but the doctors, for some reason, had not pronounced him dead yet. With his wife wailing in the room, I began praying...earnestly. I reminded God that he had raised people from the dead before. In fact, He had raised people who were much more dead than this man if he was in fact dead. (Lazarus was already in the tomb long enough to start smelling when Jesus told him to come out!) I knew then, and I still do, that God has more than enough power to raise someone who has already been pronounced dead. With that knowledge, I pleaded with God to put life back into this young man who still had not been pronounced dead.

I reasoned with God. I pointed out the praise that He would get when the doctors had to pronounce a miracle instead of a time of death. I begged for the wife of the man that I didn't know how she would make it if he died. How as it fair to let him die when he had raised others!?

I kept praying after even the wife had even given up hope that there was a real reason why the doctors had not pronounced him dead yet. And I left the hospital- and his funeral a few days later- frustrated that this verse about the surety of asking, seeking, and knocking is so difficult to understand in practice.

I also remember the feeling when I walked out to the Vanderbilt parking garage with my brother the night I thought my daughters were going to be born at 27 weeks. They wound up coming at 29.5 weeks and are doing great now! But that night, we got the visit from the doctor who was in charge of telling us all of the statistics of mortality and morbidity for babies that are born that early. Jon David walked me to the car and I shared what had been screaming silently in my mind for hours. "I prayed several weeks ago that if they weren't going to be faithful to God and Christ as adults, that God would take them before they got to that point and were still innocent."

Timidly, I still pray that prayer. I would rather lose my daughters who I love with all my heart for the next several decades and have them for all of eternity than have them till I die and lose them for eternity. That is still my prayer...but that night, anyway, I was scared to death that God had answered my prayer...and I wanted Him to take it back.

Why do we see such strong promises in the scriptures and from the mouth of Jesus and yet know that sometimes prayers are answered with "no?" Jesus, himself, was answered "no" in the Garden of Gethsemane when he begged the Father to take his cup from him. How do we reconcile that?

I have to say humbly that I still have no idea. I know intellectually the arguments about Jesus praying, "nevertheless not my will by yours be done." Those are good and true arguments. But how are we supposed to pray at all believing these commands of ask, seek, and knock when we can't see the specific and detailed plans and will of God from his eternal perspective instead of our temporary one?

Here is what I choose to believe.

Jesus was telling the truth. God makes big promises about our prayers and petitions. Jesus- and others (think Elijah in James 5:17-17)- put that truth into practice and saw incredible results in their prayers. And still at times they were told "no." I wonder if they struggled with these questions like we do. But they chose to believe. And while at times they may have been frustrated and confused about not seeing what God sees when the "no's" came, they chose to keep praying, seeking, and knocking. And their prayers closed and opened the heavens, raised the dead, and healed the sick.

I wonder if I see more "no's" than "yes's" simply because I have not chosen to translate my belief into actions and adventurous faith-led and faith-filled risk-taking like they did. I wonder.

I don't know that I will ever come to a good answer. I have some theories that I am comfortable with. But I don't think they would do you any good, because they didn't do me any good until I came to them myself. But I will choose to believe...and I will pray the prayer of a father who believed as much as he could.

I will choose to ask, seek, and knock expecting the results Jesus promised and when God questions my lack of faith I will reply like that father, "I do believe! Help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)